


Line of Duty

by nostalgic_breton_girl



Category: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:08:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29091048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgic_breton_girl/pseuds/nostalgic_breton_girl
Summary: Corinne and her fellow Blades attempt to get the Emperor to safety.
Kudos: 3





	Line of Duty

Corinne is drinking tea when it happens: tea next to her favourite palace window, looking out over the Imperial City. It is one of those ineffable Last Seed mornings – summer holding out against approaching autumn, sunlight setting the City ablaze. A lazy morning: and she has put sugar in her tea – carefully, casually careless.

She cannot hear the City, not through the window: and she can scarcely hear the rest of the Palace, amidst all these walls. Nice and quiet, for contemplation over tea. But when she goes to sip it, the cup seems to tremble, the tea within rises a little, and falls: and she turns, almost expects to see someone behind her. There is nobody.

A trembling, on the air – 

The silence broken, by shouts from below: and Corinne’s teacup shatters on the flags. A Blade knows by instinct when something happens, and she curses herself that she did not know before. Something has happened. Something – 

Trembling silence: then shouts again, and Corinne pulls out her sword, runs straight into danger. Meets Baurus on the stairs: something has happened.

‘Corinne – get to the Emperor, get him to safety.’

The Emperor!...

The Emperor has his rooms low down in the tower, low enough that one might reach safety more quickly: yet it does not seem low enough, when one does not know what is going on. The Emperor’s rooms are almost deserted, when she reaches them; and the Emperor is still asleep. It does not feel like her place to awaken him rudely – she hesitates almost, at the doorway – but Baurus’s voice is yet resounding within her, the enigma of the whole thing getting to her, and she runs over and shakes him.

‘Sire,’ she says: ‘sire, wake up, we must get you to safety.’

And when the Emperor wakes up, he looks at her – lingers a little, on her face – and says: ‘Yes… yes, of course…’

He follows her, and she looks about for Baurus, or another of the Blades: catches a glimpse of armour. It is Captain Renault, and she was on her way to the Emperor’s rooms: lets out a cry, despite herself, on seeing the Emperor, and tells them both to follow.

They have not practised the route – have never had to use it – but they know where they are going, down to the bowels of the City, where nobody may follow. The Emperor seems more discouraged, but says nothing. They go down, through sparse grey tunnels; through dust and ancient remnants; and then they are in the prison, and there are prisoners staring at them through the bars, and Corinne almost wonders if their confusion is merited, if what they are doing is perfectly bizarre. 

‘My sons –’ the Emperor says, quite inopportunely.

Captain Renault does not have a reply ready, says they were attacked. The truth is so headily obvious, that both Baurus and Corinne bow their heads, and the Emperor says he knows they’re gone. Renault has a key for the empty cell, a knack for the hidden lever, and leads them all through as if this is ordinary. The Emperor must be protected from the extraordinary. Ruling an Empire, after all, requires a level head: and looking at him now, the Blades wonder if this has done it, if there is some hideous collapse waiting to happen. His sons are dead, after all.

It is not the Blades’ job, at this moment, to question circumstances: and when they are assailed, in the caves beneath the prison, all thoughts of _ questioning  _ go out of the window. For a moment, Corinne thinks they are some undead abomination – dark mages – vampires – until she sees the scarlet robes which clad them, when they fall, and their conjured armour dissipates. The scarlet robes which clad them all, these separate groups of assailants, these assailants who came from nowhere, and knew they’d be down here – 

Scarlet robes in scarlet blood, when they fall: there are only three Blades, but they make short work of them. The Emperor has a sword, a ceremonial one which he had in his bedchambers. Corinne is determined that he not have to use it. Scarlet blood on silver swords, and the assailants are dead, lie behind them, they run onwards – 

Who  _ are  _ they?

It does not matter. The Emperor is all that matters. She has rarely come close to giving her life for the Emperor, but the strangeness of it all is at the back of her mind. Now she is a Blade, and little more. Now she runs as if possessed through these tunnels, through the dark remnants of the Ayleid, towards the light beyond.

When she remembers it later, it is these old Ayleid walls which will dominate: ancient stone, the foundations of the Imperial City, crumbling. Dirt in drifts against the walls, and vast spider-kingdoms spanning them. Ancient stone, and still standing! but lost, forgotten, crumbling… She will remember the sound of her footsteps in the dirt, the sound of a sword falling upon it, the interminable grey darkness.

When she remembers it later, it will be in fragments, divided by that extraordinary possession of duty. Duty so encompassing, that she cannot say, in the end, how many invaders she killed; how many scarlet robes she cast to the dust; cannot say, either, if Baurus or the Emperor spoke before the end. Words cast into nothing – 

And then they are cornered. Run into a dead end, attempt a return, find the way guarded fiercely by a small army of Daedric-clad assassins. Assassins whom they fight, all the while keeping the Emperor behind, in whatever now passes for safety. Assassins who near overwhelm them: and when they threaten to breach this delicate line, Captain Renault goes forth like a madwoman and cuts through them and when she has done, she staggers back, quite disbelieving what her own strength has done.

And Corinne sees it almost before she does. The light which disappears from her eyes, and the shimmering blood pooling. Captain Renault has given her life for the Emperor.

The Emperor, who hastens forwards, to her: who catches her, weakly, when she falls; who does not know what to say, and so says nothing, lets the other Blades speak.

‘There must be something we can do,’ says Baurus – despairing.

‘I… I am gone,’ says Renault: ‘go on, go on without me, get the Emperor – get the Emperor –’

And she is gone: a death worthy of a Blade, in the full throes of dutiful self-denial. And the Emperor kneels by her unscathed.


End file.
